Kind Words
by ThereIsOnlyZuul
Summary: Joker stops to think about Harley and his relationship and realizes he may actually care for her!


So this is a charming one-shot I wrote after Katy Perry's song Teenage Dream got stuck in my head for three days and I couldn't get it out! It's about Joker and Harley Quinn and how Joker secretly does kinda really love her. It actually turned out as one of my favourite little one-shots even though it's based around a Katy Perry song! So read, review, and cheers :)

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"You think I'm pretty, without any makeup on. You think I'm funny, when I tell the punch line wrong. I know you get me, so I let my walls come down, dooowwwwnnnn! Let's go all the way tonight, no regrets, just love. We can dance until we die, you and I, will be young forever!"

Joker looked up from a newspaper he had spread over the lap of his dirty purple suit and looked at the closed bathroom door where, behind the rotted wood, Harley was showering and singing an annoying pop song about love at the top of her lungs. "That girl couldn't carry a tune with a bucket," he muttered as he looked back down to the paper. He circled the obituary of a death he had caused, a smile spreading on his dry, scabby lips.

"…You brought me to life, now every February, you'll be my valentine – valentine! Let's go all the way tonight, no regrets just love. We can dance until we die, you and I will be young forever!"

"Harley! Shut up!" Joker snapped as he threw his paper to the ground and stomped towards the bathroom. He rested his hand on the doorknob but didn't go in. He pressed his ear to the door and listened to the words of Harley's song.

"You make me feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream. The way you turn me on I can't sleep. Let's run away and don't ever look back, don't ever look back!"

Harley certainly had never looked back when it came to her relationship with Joker. She'd been his psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. She'd been an A level student with a scholarship to Gotham University for gymnastics. She'd petitioned the higher-ups for months for a chance to interview Joker. She'd gotten her wish and Joker had, in a way, gotten his.

Here was a girl so eager to make her mark on the world of lunatics that she had yet to build a wall between herself and her patients. She was young and naïve and oh-so-easily charmed. Harleen Quinzel was like putty in Joker's hands. Just the way he liked his women and just what he needed to break out of Arkham Asylum.

At first she acted professionally: she jotted notes, nodded her head, asked appropriate questions at the appropriate times, and kept her distance from Joker's advances. It wasn't long though before her naivety and, honestly, her academic arrogance, led her to believe she was making actual progress with the Joker. She believed that his lies were truths and she let her guard down and fell in love with Joker.

"My heart stops when you look at me. Just one touch, now baby I believe. This is real, so take a chance and don't ever look back, don't ever look back! We drove to Cali and got drunk on the beach. Got a motel and built a fort out of sheets. I finally found you, my missing puzzle piece. I'm complete!"

Joker wondered if she did have regrets. He wouldn't blame her if she did. That night when Harleen Quinzel died and Harley Quinn was born was a moment in the girl's life bigger than anything else she'd ever do. She threw away her family and friends, her career… her sanity. She adopted a life of crime and abuse in the form of bleached white skin, slicked back green hair, and a manic smile.

"Im'ma get your heart racing in my skin tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight. Let you put your hand on my in my skin tight jeans. Be your teenage dream tonight!"

Harley had fallen madly in love with Joker and was willing to do anything for him. Her first night as Harley Quinn the harlequin she broke him out of Arkham Asylum–and has done many, many times since.

Joker, at first, had used her affection for his advantage, believing himself to be immune to the girl's stupid charms and bubbling laughter. All to quickly though he found himself staring at her stark white face when she wasn't looking and he very nearly purred when she called him Puddin'. He even found himself smiling at her pathetic attempts to tell jokes.

"The song has a ring of truth," Joker smirked as he went to sit back down. "You always do tell the punch line wrong, Harley."

"Yoooouuuu make me feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream. The way you turn me on I can't sleep. Let's run away and don't ever look back, don't ever look back! My heart stops when you look at me. Just one touch now baby I believe. This is real, so take a chance and don't ever look back, don't ever look back!"

They'd been together for years. Years and years. He was abusive and manipulative but she stuck around. Could she love him that much? It's possible that during the few and far between moments of playfulness he had had with her, she mistook his good humor for genuine affection and stayed because she thought he loved her…

Did he love her? He had certainly never said it to her. He hadn't even said it to himself. He thought he loved Harley, but putting the words 'I love you' together just seemed wrong and unnatural to him.

The shower and Harley's singing stopped. Joker heard the shower curtain rings scratch against the metal shower curtain rod. Harley's small feet shuffled across the dirty tile floor and flung open the bathroom door. Steam poured forth like the fog off a horror movie swamp and Harley emerged. She scarcely paid any attention to Joker as she headed for their bedroom.

Joker cleared his throat and Harley stopped to look at him. Her eyes lit up as a smile spread across her face. She loved him, it was easy to tell. His love was much more hidden, much deeper, much more… complicated. When he first began toying with Harley it had merely been to get his own way, but after so long with her he found it harder to manipulate her like he had in the beginning. He was even horrified to find that she had found ways of manipulating him!

Maybe that was the mark of his love.

Was she able to see that though? Joker's heart lurched. Was it time to _actually_ say the words?

"Harley?"

"Yes Puddin'?"

"I've got something to say to you."

"I'm all ears."

"I… just wanted to say… we've been together for a long time… I think it's time… I want to tell you… that… I…" Harley looked on expectantly and Joker lost his nerve. Kind words were too hard. "Never mind."

"No, go on."

"I said _never mind_."

"And I said _go on_."

"You really don't know when to shut up do you, Harley?"

"If you wanted to shut me up you'd've done it all ready. You obviously have something to tell me, so you better tell me because I'm not gonna let up until you do."

Joker sneered. He forgot from time to time that Harley was actually intelligent. "I just wanted to say…" Kind words were too hard. Easier to go back to what he knew best. "I… just wanted to say that I think you are the most horrid creature I've ever crossed paths with and I regret every day that I don't kill you."

Harley cocked her head to the side with a thoughtful look on her face. After a moment she smiled.

"What are you smiling about, Harley? You're a cold sore on my soul and I wish I could tear you out and label you medical waste! I wish you'd leave me alone–disappear off of the face of the Earth so I could have some peace and quiet! You're awful. You're dreadful. The next time you land in Arkham, I'll leave you there to rot! So tell me, after hearing all this, why the hell are you smiling?"

"I'm smiling because I know what you're trying to say."

"Oh, do you Miss Psychiatrist?"

"Yup. And you know perfectly well that I know."

"You don't know anything."

"Well, then correct me if I'm wrong."

Joker considered standing up to slap her across her arrogant face. But quickly decided against it. He couldn't say 'I love you' to her directly, but he could stay quiet and let her draw her own conclusions. He saw it as a type of neutrality. He was neither proclaiming his love nor denying it.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She blew him a kiss. "I love you too, Puddin'." She bounced away happily without waiting for Joker's reply and he couldn't help but laugh. She was back to her old self, as she had first been at Arkham. Hell, maybe she had never changed from the girl he had first met... Maybe she'd been playing him this whole time...

"Harley… playing me?" Joker thought about it briefly before shaking the very notion of it from his mind. "That's even harder to swallow than her fairytale notion that I might even consider falling in love with her…"


End file.
